Since Dr. Williamson kindly gave us a lot of leeway with today’s freewrite, it’s possible that I might be all over the place with my thoughts. I’ll do my best to keep my train of thought on the rails! The first thing I wanted to talk about in my response was the Michael Field poems. I feel like we had a really interesting class discussion about them, and about the authors in general. I read the poems in the order that they were anthologized in, and I found that I appreciated the later poems more than the selections from Long Ago. I’m not quite sure why this is, but I have some ideas and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to reach a more defined conclusion via freewriting. The imagery in the Long Ago poems seemed flatter/staler than what I noticed in the poems that followed. For example, in XXIV, milk and honey are two of the images used. For my own reading, these images as figurative devices were not particularly evocative. This seemed out of sync with the subject matter of the poem. (Or at least my interpretations of the subject matter of the poem.) On the other hand, there were many places where the use of language worked really effectively for me. ‘A Girl,’ the description of the soul as a pearl felt more developed and genuine. In our discussion of Frankenstein, we discussed the ideal of clear eyes as being tied to accessibility of the soul, implying that it’s preferable to have that kind of access. Field’s poem, however, seems to celebrate a certain level of mystery by comparing the soul to something that is beautiful but opaque. This idea is further complicated by the reference to the girl’s face as being “flowered.” The idea of flowering connotes a kind of openness to me. This suggests that the girl is not necessarily intentionally mysterious, or coy, but rather that there are certain elements of who she is that are unknowable to the outside world. This is supported by the idea that the speaker makes reference to leaving a page “half-writ.” In this act, the speaker seems accept, and perhaps embrace, the idea that she cannot fully know the girl of which she writes. Of course, in the context of Michael Field’s dual identities, the poem may take on a very different, and potentially more autobiographical reading. That being said, I do like to play with interpretive possibilities and varied readings. Plenitude getting the best of me! I also wanted to touch on the interpretations of Corinne’s melancholy that we talked about in class today. Nick raised some interesting points regarding Corinne’s melancholy being read as an inability to self-regulate/prevent self-destruction. I’m working with melancholy for my final paper, so I’ve been thinking about that a lot, particularly in relation to de Stael and Shelley. I absolutely agree with the validity of this reading, especially when viewed in relation to Mansfield Park. However, my own viewpoint is slightly different. I’m inclined to feel that Corinne’s inability to self-regulate is circumstantial as opposed to intrinsic. To be more specific, I feel that Corinne doesn’t implode because she falls in love, but rather because she falls in love with someone for whom she will have to fundamentally alter herself. I would be curious to see how her character trajectory would be different had she fallen in love with someone whose values were more reflective of her own. On the other hand, I suppose the argument could be made that self-regulation shouldn’t be a circumstantial ability. I would definitely acknowledge such an argument as valid, but I still ultimately view Corinne’s self-destruction as the product of repressive ideologies relating to gender and propriety.
ENGL 864 Response 6/18/14
Since Dr. Williamson kindly gave us a lot of leeway with today’s freewrite, it’s possible that I might be all over the place with my thoughts. I’ll do my best to keep my train of thought on the rails!
The first thing I wanted to talk about in my response was the Michael Field poems. I feel like we had a really interesting class discussion about them, and about the authors in general. I read the poems in the order that they were anthologized in, and I found that I appreciated the later poems more than the selections from Long Ago. I’m not quite sure why this is, but I have some ideas and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to reach a more defined conclusion via freewriting.
The imagery in the Long Ago poems seemed flatter/staler than what I noticed in the poems that followed. For example, in XXIV, milk and honey are two of the images used. For my own reading, these images as figurative devices were not particularly evocative. This seemed out of sync with the subject matter of the poem. (Or at least my interpretations of the subject matter of the poem.)
On the other hand, there were many places where the use of language worked really effectively for me. ‘A Girl,’ the description of the soul as a pearl felt more developed and genuine. In our discussion of Frankenstein, we discussed the ideal of clear eyes as being tied to accessibility of the soul, implying that it’s preferable to have that kind of access. Field’s poem, however, seems to celebrate a certain level of mystery by comparing the soul to something that is beautiful but opaque. This idea is further complicated by the reference to the girl’s face as being “flowered.” The idea of flowering connotes a kind of openness to me. This suggests that the girl is not necessarily intentionally mysterious, or coy, but rather that there are certain elements of who she is that are unknowable to the outside world. This is supported by the idea that the speaker makes reference to leaving a page “half-writ.” In this act, the speaker seems accept, and perhaps embrace, the idea that she cannot fully know the girl of which she writes.
Of course, in the context of Michael Field’s dual identities, the poem may take on a very different, and potentially more autobiographical reading. That being said, I do like to play with interpretive possibilities and varied readings. Plenitude getting the best of me!
I also wanted to touch on the interpretations of Corinne’s melancholy that we talked about in class today. Nick raised some interesting points regarding Corinne’s melancholy being read as an inability to self-regulate/prevent self-destruction. I’m working with melancholy for my final paper, so I’ve been thinking about that a lot, particularly in relation to de Stael and Shelley. I absolutely agree with the validity of this reading, especially when viewed in relation to Mansfield Park. However, my own viewpoint is slightly different. I’m inclined to feel that Corinne’s inability to self-regulate is circumstantial as opposed to intrinsic. To be more specific, I feel that Corinne doesn’t implode because she falls in love, but rather because she falls in love with someone for whom she will have to fundamentally alter herself. I would be curious to see how her character trajectory would be different had she fallen in love with someone whose values were more reflective of her own. On the other hand, I suppose the argument could be made that self-regulation shouldn’t be a circumstantial ability. I would definitely acknowledge such an argument as valid, but I still ultimately view Corinne’s self-destruction as the product of repressive ideologies relating to gender and propriety.